Of Course I Did

 The celestial event that everyone has been talking about was something I was not going to miss and having made my own solar filter and done a few test shots in preparation I was ready to head out and photograph the solar eclipse.

Living on the coast in the North West of England provided me the perfect opportunity to view the eclipse and while not a total eclipse in this part of the world we had about 92% coverage so that was pretty spectacular. I have shared below a selection of the better shots and I am pretty happy with the results. 

Tracking the eclipse was pretty challenging and keeping things in focus even more so and there were many shots that I have discarded. I saw a few people out using smart telescopes to track and shoot the event and I have seen some of the time lapse videos they produce. They are really impressive. However I feel a greater satisfaction in capturing these images using my DSLR, tripod and home made filter than if I had used a piece of kit that did all the work for me. Anyway as always enjoy the images and feel free to leave a comment.

Slinky

Today I decided to do a little project with my four year old grandson creating a few abstract images with long exposures and a small yellow plastic slinky. It was fun to see how different ways of pulling and twanging the slinky would create very different effects. It was also fun to see his enjoyment as we then tried different effects (cropping, rotating, saturation levels and contrast) in lightroom and producing images that he liked and wanted to share.

So here are the results, please let me know what you think so I can share your comments with him  

Captivating

 My last post was almost 3 months ago, following a trip to the zoo and as it happens this post also follows a further trip to the zoo. I didn't get to see many of the species I had hoped to see so I am thinking that I may need to invest in a season ticket so I can go back more frequently. 

My last post was exclusively photos of a cheetah and today I will include more shots of the cheetah because it is my favourite of  the big cats. I also include some shots of  the bush dogs which are really endearing creatures, one of a tiger and some shots of an Orang Utan proving that he is the King of the swingers. 

I think I have some photos of a mongoose from my previous visit but I need to look through those for another day.

Kitty Kat

 I always love photographing wildlife whether it is near my local beach, at a nature reserve or even in a zoo. I would love to travel and photograph exotic creatures in their natural habitat but there are lots of reasons why that isn't possible every now and then it is great to visit a zoo and get some exotic shots closer to home. Just as in the wild taking photos of any of the animals in the zoo requires a lot of patience and a degree of luck, especially if you want natural looking shots. 

I especially love the big cats and I was lucky enough to see the snow leopards, a Siberian tiger and the cheetah all of which are absolutely beautiful. I am always drawn to the cheetah though because they have such grace and despite being an apex predator with some serious skills they can still manage to charm like a domestic cat.

Here are a few of my cheetah images from my recent zoo visit...